Prep star's talents lost in trail of anger, arrests

[Eric the Red]

from this morning's Jacksonville newspaper

 

Tears, not cheers

 

Prep star's talents lost in trail of anger, arrests

 

By BART HUBBUCH, The Times-Union

 

 

A tear streams down the cheek of former Jacksonville high school football star Robert Pollard as he talks about his mother during an interview at the Clay County Jail. Pollard is in custody on a probation violation and is awaiting a hearing.

 

If not for the shackles wrapped around both ankles, Robert Pollard still looks like he could step outside and chase down a running back or take a handoff the distance.

 

One of the most celebrated high school football players in Jacksonville's history turns 30 in August, but Pollard hasn't lost a bit of the strapping physique that once inspired awe in fans, coaches and recruiters alike.

 

"We used to call him Jim Thorpe,'' longtime Bolles coach Corky Rogers said of Pollard, who stood 6-feet-1 and 200 pounds as an eighth- grader.

 

How good a high school football player was Pollard? One major recruiting list from his senior season in 1995 rated Pollard ahead of future NFL stars Edgerrin James, Laveranues Coles, Champ Bailey and Plaxico Burress and eventual Heisman Trophy winner Ron Dayne.

 

But almost 15 years after he first showed the electrifying skills at Bolles and Orange Park High School that seemed certain to make him a wealthy man in the NFL one day, Pollard instead finds himself in a depressingly familiar place.

 

Behind bars.

 

Pollard has been in the Clay County Jail since early December and will be there for at least another month, according to the public defender assigned to him, because Pollard is indigent.

 

The latest jail stint is the result of a probation violation from the most serious of Pollard's more than dozen arrests in Clay and Duval counties since 1996.

 

The story of how he found himself in this predicament is a mix of bad luck, worse decisions and, perhaps most of all, tragedy. With college football's national signing period starting in 10 days, Pollard's tale also is a reminder that incredible talent doesn't guarantee success.

 

"I can honestly say I was young and dumb,'' Pollard said during a recent jailhouse interview. "When I got older, I realized a lot of people that were out to help me weren't against me. I was being selfish back then, and I hurt myself.''

 

At the same time, Pollard wonders every day what might have happened had Shirlie Marie Pollard been around to support him all these years.

 

"I would give my right arm and right leg to have my mom here today," he said. "If my mom was here, my life would be a lot different."

 

Early trauma

 

Growing up, Pollard rarely - if ever - spoke about what he saw in his parents' bedroom the morning of Sept. 6, 1980.

 

Teachers and coaches later in his life only heard bits and pieces passed along by Pollard's relatives in hopes of explaining his impulsive, sometimes violent behavior.

 

Nearly three decades later, Pollard still has trouble describing his mother's murder in their Orange Park home at the hands of his father, Robert Pollard Jr.

 

Pollard was just 3 years old at the time, but recalling that day is still painful. The mere mention of it during a recent interview caused him to start, pause, compose himself and start again as tears streamed down his face.

 

Pollard's 2-year-old brother, Rico, was in the kitchen in a booster seat and wanted some more cereal. Pollard went to his parents' bedroom in search of his mother and was standing in the doorway when it happened.

 

"He strangled my mom right in front of my face," he said. "I thought they were wrestling, but the next thing I know, I saw her arms just drop.

 

"There's not a day that goes by that I don't think about it."

 

Fearful that his 23-year-old wife was about to leave him, Pollard's father had strangled her after an all-night drinking binge. He then went on the run with his two sons before being arrested the next day after an intensive manhunt by both the Jacksonville and Clay County sheriff's offices.

 

Robert Pollard Jr. was sentenced to 10 years for manslaughter in the killing but served fewer than two years before being paroled, according to state records.

 

His son, on the other hand, was sentenced to a lifetime of trauma and grief.

 

"[The murder] has always been with him,'' said Jessie Greene, the maternal grandmother who raised Robert Pollard and his brother in Orange Park after her daughter's death. "A grandmother can love you, but there's nothing like having your mom and your dad.''

 

Pollard said he eventually forgave his father, but the relationship was never repaired and probably never will be. The elder Pollard is now in state prison serving the fourth year of a 30-year sentence for sexual battery and aggravated battery with a deadly weapon.

 

To the dismay of those around him, the younger Robert Pollard still shows little interest in dealing with the tragic turns his family has taken.

 

"I've been told that I need to set counseling up, but I've never followed through on it," he said. "I don't want to use that as a crutch."

 

A man against boys

 

Rogers, the winningest high school football coach in Florida history, has seen more pro-caliber talent than he can count in 35 years on the local stage.

 

But ask Rogers who the best player he has coached or coached against, and he answers without hesitation: Robert Pollard.

 

"The best pure athlete I've ever seen," Rogers said last week. "Without question."

 

 

Robert Pollard (22) was a top player on offense and defense at Orange Park High School and one of the most sought-after recruits in Jacksonville high school football history.

 

Pollard first walked into Rogers' office at Bolles in the spring of 1992, courtesy of the mother of one of Pollard's former Pop Warner teammates.

 

She thought the prestigious San Jose-area private school - a former military academy - would give Pollard the structure and discipline he obviously needed.

 

Rogers, on the other hand, couldn't believe what he was seeing.

 

"I was in shock," he said. "This guy walks in who's 6-1, 200 or 215 pounds. He didn't look 14 years old. He looked like a man."

 

School officials, although hesitant about Pollard's poor academic background, responded to Rogers' prodding and offered him a scholarship.

 

It didn't take long for Pollard to make his presence felt.

 

Despite playing for a program that is annually one of the best in the state, Pollard immediately won a starting job at wingback and linebacker on the varsity as a ninth grader.

 

The first time Pollard touched the ball in a game, he returned the opening kickoff 88 yards for a touchdown. A Times-Union report described it as "a grand arrival for one of the best athletes Jacksonville prep football has seen in years."

 

"I went there and took care of business," Pollard said. "Coach Rogers always had me on the field, and I was hungry."

 

Pollard's high school career skyrocketed during his sophomore season, when he was the centerpiece of a team that finished 15-0 and won the Class 3A state championship.

 

Some of Pollard's performances that season are still the stuff of Bolles lore.

 

There were the 229 all-purpose yards, three touchdowns and game-saving interception in the end zone against Alachua Santa Fe, a team that featured current Jaguars middle linebacker Mike Peterson at quarterback.

 

What about the 241 all-purpose yards and three touchdowns against Lee in the playoffs? Or the 165 all-purpose yards, four tackles and interception against Lake Wales in the state title game?

 

After Pollard scored three touchdowns in a midseason rout of rival Nease, opposing coach Chuck Walker scoffed at a reporter who asked about his team's missed tackles against Pollard.

 

"Those weren't missed tackles," Walker said. "That's a man out there."

 

Pollard was so impressive that one national recruiting publication declared him the best prospect in the country - as a sophomore.

 

Florida coach Steve Spurrier watched Bolles' state-title victory after approaching a reporter on the sideline during pregame warm-ups with one question: "Which one's Pollard?"

 

But while Pollard dominated on the football field, he was no match for Bolles' famously rigorous standards in the classroom.

 

Two Ds qualify for dismissal at the school, and Pollard never got a grade higher than that in English and was dismissed - despite Rogers' pleas to the administration - after his sophomore year.

 

"English at Bolles was like going to college," he said. "We were writing essays as soon as the bell rang. I wasn't used to that. The academics were a big problem for me."

 

Looking back, Pollard now thinks the forced departure from Bolles caused his spiral to pick up speed.

 

"I had a great time at Bolles," he said. "When I left, that's when the trouble started."

 

Star athlete syndrome

 

Prodded by his uncle, a teacher at Orange Park High School, Pollard transferred to the school in the summer of 1994.

 

His troubles began almost immediately.

 

Attending a welcome-back party in his honor, Pollard got into an argument with a former junior high teammate and swung his right fist, accidentally putting it through a window instead.

 

The nerve damage was severe, forcing Pollard to have surgery that ended his junior season before it began.

 

Although the incident should have been a warning sign about Pollard's problems with anger, the dozens of recruiters that streamed through Orange Park's football office were more interested in what proved to be a spectacular senior season instead.

 

Playing on offense and defense, and with the biggest college programs in the country tracking his every statistic, Pollard rushed for 977 yards and scored 20 touchdowns with the Raiders while playing alongside his brother Rico.

 

"If you put the tape on, it took you about 30 seconds to see just how talented he was," said North Dakota State coach Craig Bohl, who coached linebackers at Nebraska at the time and was point man in the Cornhuskers' recruitment of Pollard.

 

Nebraska, which was coming off a rout of Florida in the national championship game, won an intensive fight with the Gators, Florida State, Ohio State and Auburn for Pollard's letter-of-intent signature.

 

At the time, Pollard was the first Jacksonville high school player to sign with Nebraska. Bohl said the school projected him as an outside linebacker in the Cornhuskers' famed "Black Shirt" defensive system.

 

"He was the perfect combination of size and speed,'' Bohl said recently. "There wasn't a lot Robert couldn't do on the football field."

 

But just a week after signing day, Nebraska coach Tom Osborne - already facing national scrutiny for his treatment of troubled running back Lawrence Phillips - was having to answer for Pollard.

 

The problems stemmed from a battery charge in Orange Park a month before, when a Jacksonville man said Pollard punched him the back of the head after a verbal dispute.

 

Pollard pleaded no contest and was required to take anger management courses. Osborne stuck with him, but the coach's faith in Pollard wouldn't be reciprocated.

 

Pollard didn't score high enough on the ACT exam to qualify as a freshman and didn't bother taking the SAT because he considered it too difficult.

 

"I didn't prepare for that the way I should have," Pollard said. "I was young and caught up in the star athlete thing too much."

 

Timing and luck also weren't on Pollard's side in his bid to play for the Cornhuskers. Had it been one year earlier, Pollard could have been admitted under Big Eight Conference rules as a partial qualifier - meaning he had the grades but not the test score - and potentially eligible as a sophomore.

 

But in 1996, which would have been Pollard's freshman year, Nebraska had to give up the partial-qualifier benefit when it joined the Big 12 Conference. The benefit was lost at the insistence of the four Texas schools, which made eliminating partial qualifiers a requirement for them to join the league.

 

"My life would have been way different if I'd been able to [go to] Nebraska [as a partial qualifier]," he said. "I would be in the NFL right now. I know I would. I would have been away from the negative influences and been in a situation where people were trying to help me."

 

More bad choices

 

Nebraska's pursuit of Pollard ended when he refused their request to attend a military prep school and picked Mississippi's Hinds Community College instead.

 

Hinds has produced several players who went on to lengthy NFL careers, including Leon Lett and Zack Crockett, and longtime coach Gene Murphy was quickly convinced Pollard could be the school's next pro export.

 

"There was no doubt he was one of the most talented players who ever came through our program," Murphy said last week.

 

Pollard excelled on the field at Hinds as a true freshman, seeing time at both running back and linebacker until Murphy moved him strictly to defense the second half of the season.

 

But off the field and in the classroom, Pollard couldn't overcome his anger and short attention span. He was involved in several incidents with campus security and didn't bother taking his final exams before returning to Orange Park for what he described as family reasons.

 

"Looking back, leaving Hinds was about the worst thing I could have ever done," he said.

 

Pollard was out of football for the next two years and working as a dishwasher at a local barbecue chain when the next potential football lifeline was thrown his way in the form of a tryout with the Arena League's Orlando Predators in the spring of 1999.

 

Pollard's stint with the Predators was reminiscent of his high school days. Playing wide receiver and linebacker, Pollard scored three touchdowns in one quarter of his first preseason game.

 

Pollard was just 21, making him the youngest player in arena football history at the time.

 

"To be honest with you, and perfectly blunt, he was one hell of a football player," said Predators spokesman Dan Pearson, who was with the team then. "He would have been a star."

 

But just two regular-season games into his stint with Orlando, Pollard once again fell victim to poor judgment and bad timing.

 

While on a road trip to Des Moines, Iowa, Pollard and two other teammates were given a random drug test by the league. Pollard said he had smoked marijuana shortly before the test but didn't tell anyone.

 

Under the AFL's drug policy at the time, an admission of use before a positive test would only have resulted in a three-game suspension; a positive test without previous admission prompted a one-year suspension.

 

The league has no significant drug testing now, Pearson said.

 

"If it had been a few years later, [Pollard's marijuana use] wouldn't have even been an issue," Pearson said.

 

Pollard wasn't done with football, though, attending training camps with British Columbia and Winnipeg of the Canadian Football League over the next 10 months in hopes of getting drafted by the NFL in 2000, his first year of eligibility.

 

The NFL, it would turn out, had other plans.

 

Unflattering nickname

 

Despite a blip of a career in college football and failed stabs at arena football and Canada, Pollard was not an unknown commodity to pro scouts as the 2000 NFL Draft approached.

 

Several scouting services gave him a draft-worthy grade, and the lengthy list of teams to give Pollard a workout included New Orleans, Miami and Green Bay. The Jaguars also worked him out twice, including just days before the draft.

 

"I thought it was going to happen for me," Pollard said.

 

But Pollard's off-the-field problems, especially the drug use, were deal-breakers. The draft passed without his name being called, and no one even contacted him about coming to training camp as an undrafted free agent.

 

The mention of his draft-day snub is the only thing that prompts a hint of bitterness from the mild-mannered Pollard.

 

"[Former Jaguars coach] Tom Coughlin nicknamed me 'Marijuana Man' during my tryouts - and this was the same year he drafted R. Jay Soward," Pollard said, referring to the wide receiver and first-round pick with numerous drug incidents. "I used to hang out with R. Jay around some bad people. The whole time I was thinking, 'Man, if I was in your position, I wouldn't be around here.' "

 

The shattering of his NFL dreams sent Pollard into an immediate tailspin.

 

He was arrested in Clay County five times over the next 11 months on charges that included felony cocaine possession, felony sale of cocaine within 1,000 feet of a school and resisting arrest, also a felony.

 

"The disappointment of not getting drafted caused him to turn the other route," said Jessie Greene, his grandmother. "It just snowballed on him. It was like pouring water on a drowning man."

 

The low point occurred in January 2001, when Pollard was arrested at an Orange Park restaurant for selling crack cocaine two months earlier to an undercover police officer.

 

Three off-duty policemen recognized Pollard at the restaurant from his playing days.

 

Pollard spent just a few months in jail for all his legal troubles to that point, but he would get to know the inside of a cell much better in the coming months.

 

Football in future?

 

Pollard refused to give up football despite his constant legal trouble and spent one year with the Jacksonville Tomcats until that minor-league indoor team folded after the 2002 season.

 

But prodded by a former girlfriend, he gave up the sport and said he was content to be a family man to his two daughters (now 11 and 8) while working for a Southside collection agency.

 

But after a night of drinking and arguing with the girlfriend in late 2005, Pollard was arrested and pleaded guilty to third-degree felony battery for attacking her, resulting in a six-month jail sentence and three years of probation.

 

"Everything was going good, but the alcohol changed my life," Pollard said of the incident. "I know where alcohol can take me now, so I'm trying not to go there."

 

Pollard returned to the collection agency last summer and said he had begun to put the sport out of his mind when football came calling once again.

 

An assistant coach for the Lakeland ThunderBolts remembered Pollard from high school and contacted him for a midseason tryout. With his probation officer's permission, Pollard went down and impressed coach Teddrick Keaton. He ended up playing the second half of the season and the playoffs as a defensive end.

 

"You would never have known he'd been out of football for so long," Keaton said. "He was everything people told us he was going to be."

 

Though the league paid only $250 a game, Pollard was rejuvenated by the chance to play again.

 

"The coach didn't know I was as old as I was because of the way I play," Pollard said. "I've got the energy of a 22-year-old."

 

Pollard's attention to detail and sense of responsibility weren't as sharp. He neglected to tell his probation officer that he had changed his address by moving in with a new girlfriend, prompting his most recent stint in the Clay County Jail that is scheduled to end by March.

 

The ThunderBolts, despite knowing his criminal history, want Pollard to return after he is released from jail this winter.

 

"We'd love to have him back," Keaton said. "I know what his background is, but I'm telling you he is really a great kid. People wouldn't be giving him all of these second chances if they thought he was a bad person."

 

While he realizes he probably doesn't deserve more chances in football, Pollard is still holding out hope.

 

"I still feel like football is my purpose," he said. "If I can get my life ironed out, I can still do it. I don't think it's too late."

 

Pollard paused, his eyes welling with tears.

 

"I want to make my mom proud."

[Blackshirtsguru]

It's sad that these kids finally realize YEARS later just how good they could of had it if they would of just kept their noses clean! Especially the lucky one's with God given talent that could take them places other's could only dream about!

[Hunter94]

It's sad that these kids finally realize YEARS later just how good they could of had it if they would of just kept their noses clean! Especially the lucky one's with God given talent that could take them places other's could only dream about!

 

 

easy to say that if you grew up and had a normal life........duh

[Blackshirtsguru]

It's sad that these kids finally realize YEARS later just how good they could of had it if they would of just kept their noses clean! Especially the lucky one's with God given talent that could take them places other's could only dream about!

 

 

easy to say that if you grew up and had a normal life........duh

duh??? What are you 12? What about the one's that HAVE made a life for themselves? Emmit Smith...Lived in a friggen Ghetto and had to run to and from school just so he wouldn't get beat up. Or how about Warrick Dunn.....The guy lost his mother to a gun shot and was left to raise his brothers and sisters. Did I say it wasn't easy? Nope, but it's also not hard to turn the other cheek and not be in favor of selling crack!

[Eric the Red]

It's sad that these kids finally realize YEARS later just how good they could of had it if they would of just kept their noses clean! Especially the lucky one's with God given talent that could take them places other's could only dream about!

 

 

easy to say that if you grew up and had a normal life........duh

 

 

That really wasn't necessary. Please take a time out in the corner and knock the sh#t off because I noticed this in a few other threads. Remember, it's always the second one that gets caught.

[BIGREDFAN_in_OMAHA]

Pisa Tinoisamoa of the Rams is another that turned things around. He was all world his senior season in high school in California being named defensive player of the year in 1998 and also made all-state on offense. Then he had some brushes with the law and USC and other schools dropped interest. June Jones and Hawaii took a chance and he got his life back on track.

[Vin]

Pollard passed away the other day. 

[Xmas32]

Appreciate the bump @Vin on this.  I don't remember hearing about Pollard.  Damn shame about him, sounds like he had a world of talent.  RIP.

[Vin]

44 minutes ago, Xmas32 said:

Appreciate the bump @Vin on this.  I don't remember hearing about Pollard.  Damn shame about him, sounds like he had a world of talent.  RIP.

He was very talented. I used to hang out with him soon after his football career fell apart, he was a good guy but easily went astray. I hadn’t spoken to him in close to 20 years tho. 
 

44 minutes ago, Xmas32 said:

 

[Huskadeez]

OMG. I’m sad to hear this. I saw him play his last high school game and was every bit the talent they say. Probably the fastest football player in Florida high school football at the time